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Borgatti to give a talk at Fitchburg Art Museum

By Bonnie J. Toomey, Correspondent

Updated:
11/03/2012 06:32:04 AM EDT

FITCHBURG -- African art curator Jean M. Borgatti will give a gallery talk highlighting a thought-provoking exhibition called "Face to Face: Works from the Collection in Dialogue" from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Fitchburg Art Museum.

The collection pairs African and Oceanic works, the latter referring to art from the Pacific.

Borgatti wants to spark what she terms, "cross-cultural conversations" over diverse works of art throughout Fitchburg Art Museum's 12 galleries. People will be able to view carvings, photographs, masks, shields, and other African and Oceanic objects on display next to European paintings, Asian sculpture, and Greek and Egyptian antiquities.

Borgatti challenges the visitor to make connections about form, philosophy, and curatorial significance of these varying works.

"Thus creating a bridge of understanding between them," notes Borgatti who is affiliated with Boston University and Clark University, and has co-authored the book, "Likeness and Beyond" which delves into non-Western art and the thought behind it.

"Though I am doing a gallery talk on "Face to Face" on Sunday, the exhibit will be up through August 2013, and we do have an excellent self-guided tour, both in the form of labels and in a booklet that one can borrow from the front desk," suggests Borgatti.

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Borgatti wants visitors to understand that each piece has been selected to go 'face to face' with works from other time periods and places to prompt people to think in different ways about familiar works.

"In the portrait gallery, for example, a pair of commemorative images for deceased twins from the Yoruba of Nigeria stand adjacent to a 19th century American portrait of children," says Borgatti.

Borgatti further explains that it is important to recognize that the motivation for making portraits across cultures is based on similar shared inspirations of the societies, which is to remember loved ones, although the way in which it is artistically expressed is not always through conventions of portraiture such as we might see in Western cultures.

"Western portraits stress physical resemblance, even though the 19th century American artist might not have been skilled in representing three-dimensional characters on a two-dimensional plane. African portraits received their identity through being named, recognized, and handled - but not by being literal likenesses," adds Borgatti, emphasizing the deeper dimension of an idealized representation of a loved one.

"There are actually a whole cluster of African images that I have interposed in the Hudson River Landscape Painting Exhibition," says Borgatti.

The exhibit features a fantastic spectacle of an impressive mask and costume that stands 9 feet tall and represents a Nigerian Nature Spirit in its own culture. It also comprises a wonderful photograph by American photographer, Phyllis Galembo, showing a leaf-covered masquerade standing among the great buttress roots of an iroko tree in a shrine sanctuary.

Borgatti goes on to say "this is one of the few places in Nigeria where old growth forest has been preserved from being clear cut."

The link between the Hudson River School of Landscape painting and the photo is representative of part of the movement in the United States in the 19th century that spearheaded the ideas of conservation and national forests.

"To preserve our old growth forest," Borgatti clarifies, an ever-present issue, to help people think in new ways, that they might not have noticed before. Although there is not a direct link, Borgatti wants people to think about how we are the same or different whether now or three-thousand years ago.

"In our Egyptian gallery, I have placed three African headrests, pillows from the early 20th century face to face with one from Egypt. Contrary to what you might assume about whose traditions are the oldest -- in fact, ancient Egyptians borrowed the headrest idea from the interior of Africa, where it has continued to be a feature of the material culture of a number of southern and east African peoples," says Borgatti.

Borgatti is hopeful that people will totally change the way they view the artifacts and the art after hearing the presentation and visiting the gallery.

The Fitchburg Art Museum, North Central Massachusetts' most treasured cultural institution is a world-class family-friendly museum with a permanent collection spanning 5,000 years is located at 25 Merriam Parkway Fitchburg. For more information call 978-345-4207.

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